Vrdolyak Wants Mayor`s Ally Prosecuted

June 14, 1985|By James Strong and Manuel Galvan.

Ald. Edward Vrdolyak (10th), a leader of the Chicago City Council majority bloc, Thursday accused a close adviser of Mayor Harold Washington of threatening to ``kill`` him during the melee that broke out in the council chambers a day earlier.

Vrdolyak said he will seek arrest warrants for Walter ``Slim`` Coleman, head of the Heart of Uptown Coalition and editor of a pro-Washington community newspaper, under a new state law making it a felony to threaten public officials.

``There are 40 witnesses, including policemen and aldermen, who heard him say, `I`m going to kill you,` `` Vrdolyak said during the taping of ``At Issue,`` to be aired at 9:30 a.m. Sunday on WBBM-AM.

``When someone says they are going to kill me and uses obscenities . . . and then jumps over the railing onto the council floor, I definitely will pursue whatever legal rights I have to the Nth degree,`` Vrdolyak said.

The unruly council meeting erupted into pandemonium Wednesday when Coleman, reacting to remarks directed at him by Vrdolyak, bolted from his seat in the press section, shouting obscenities and challenging Vrdolyak to fight. The council at the time was debating a controversial plan for spending $126 million in federal Community Development Block Grant funds. At the meeting, the majority bloc approved its version of the plan on a vote of 26-21.

Washington reacted Thursday by calling a special council session for Friday morning to recondsider the plan.

Washington had been expected to veto the measure, but shortly before a Thursday afternoon news conference, he notified aldermen that he had called for the special session to consider ``repealing an ordinance authorizing submission of final statement of objectives and projected use of funds for Community Development Block Grant entitlement.``

The majority bloc originally had shifted $14 million of the $126 million from priorities favored by the mayor to projects favored by anti-

administration aldermen. But at a meeting that preceded Wednesday`s council session, the Finance Committee restored about $1.6 million to the mayor`s programs.

Friday is the deadline for submitting the block grant spending plan to the federal government. The deadline has been extended once.

Asked during the radio taping if he did not provoke the outburst by calling Coleman ``the funeral director for the Nazi Party`` Vrdolyak replied, ``There is no provocation sufficient for someone to say they are going to kill you. My remarks were factual.``

Vrdolyak was referring to a funeral service, attended by Washington, for a 20-year-old youth who was a member of the neo-Nazi Rebels street gang on the North Side.

Coleman said the youth was killed for attempting sever connections with the gang, but Vrdolyak cited newspaper accounts that police attributed the death of Kevin Zornes on March 11 to a game of Russian roulette.

Coleman said he never made any threats to Vrdolyak, although he was heard by reporters to shout, ``I`m going to get you.``

Vrdolyak also attacked Washington`s behavior during the uproar saying,

``The action was abhorrent and the nonaction by the mayor was more abhorrent. There was not one word from the mayor because he (Coleman) is his pal and crony. His conduct was just as reprehensible.``

According to state law, the penalty for being convicted of threatening a public official is one to three years in prison. However, the law does not seem to include oral threats, except by telephone.

The law applies to ``that person who knows and willfully delivers or conveys directly or indirectly to a public official any telephone

communication, letter, paper, writing, print, missive or document containing a threat to the life of or inflicting great bodily harm on the public official or member of his immediate family.``